Garda HQ arranged to bug station, tribunal told

Garda headquarters dispatched a sergeant to bug a rural station at the centre of a web of corruption within the force, it was claimed tonight.

Former officer Martin Leonard told the Morris Tribunal today that two colleagues told him about the covert recording equipment being set up in a Donegal garda station 10 years ago.

Eight members of the McBrearty family from Raphoe were interrogated at Letterkenny station during a botched murder investigation in December 1996.

They were all later found innocent of any involvement in the death of cattle dealer Richie Barron who had died in a hit-and-run collision.

Mr Leonard said Garda Tina Fowley and Sergeant Brendan Roache told him a few months after the wrongful arrests that a Sergeant Joseph Costello had been brought down from Dublin to bug rooms in the station.

Sgt Costello – who spent several days in Donegal during the murder probe – was from the Garda Technical Bureau at the force’s headquarters in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.

Tribunal barrister Paul McDermott asked the ex-officer, who was dismissed last year, if there was a deliberate attempt to bug conversations between the family.

“I had no knowledge of it. I wasn’t aware of it on the day, that’s for sure,” he said.

“It was discussed afterwards. Tina Fowley was the one I heard on about it, that she had prepared that particular room (in the Garda station) you are on about.”

Asked what she told him, Mr Leonard said: “That he (Sgt Costello) was brought down and that the room was set up to listen to visitors.”

He added: “My opinion is she was well aware that room was bugged for the purpose of the visitors.”

Mr Leonard insisted he wasn’t astonished by the claims from his colleagues.

“Nothing was surprising me at this stage, because of what happened in December 1996,” he said.

Under questioning, he said he believed top chiefs within the force were fully aware of the alleged bugging.

“Surely to God she wasn’t telling me and management didn’t know,” he said. “At that stage, the management had to know.”

Although there was no designated room in the station where solicitors could meet with their clients, Mr Leonard believed privileged conversations were not spied on.

“There was no question about the solicitors,” he said.